In the past few years, air purifiers have gone from being a luxury to an absolute necessity. With dire air pollution reports making headlines daily across India, breathing clean air has now become a luxury too. You may be forced to lock yourself and your children indoors, but here’s another dire fact that indoor air quality also deteriorates.
Slowly and steadily, air purifiers have found their way into hotel lobbies, school classes, office spaces, and even gyms and spas. There is an air purifier for every budget, room, and person.
The premium room in the air purifier category was dominated by Dyson. The company has now launched its new Dyson Purifier Cool and Dyson Purifier Hot + Cool air purifier series.
I have the latter, more expensive, with me to check in time for the pollution season. With terms like dangerous air quality, toxic gases and PM2.5 making the rounds, see if this air purifier can purify the air in our homes for the price of Rs 47,515.
More importantly, we’re trying to answer a key question: do air purifiers have an impact on indoor air quality?
DYSON HOT + COOL AIR PURIFIER
- Price: Rs 47,515
- Comes with remote control
- Pairing with the Dyson Link app
- Effective air purification
- Requires a 16A socket
LOOKS
Dyson has an edge over the competition when it comes to design. His gadgets look slimmer, more advanced and that often becomes a game changer for modern homes, where a lot of thought is put into how a gadget fits into the “aesthetics” of the interiors. Dyson’s new air purifier uses the company’s famous blade-less fan system and comes in a white case with silver accents.
The cylindrical bottom holds the crucial parts, namely the air filters, and also houses the display. Before investing in this device, note that the Hot + Cool comes with a larger 16A plug and you will need to plug it into a larger outlet. There is a power button on the underside and the flap on the underside can be easily removed to change the air filter.
The display on the base is very practical because you can find out everything about the indoor air quality in your sleeping or living area. You can see the fan speed, but more clearly the PM2.5, PM10, volatile organic compounds and nitrogen dioxide levels. All these parameters testify to the gloomy reality of our time — where even the inner quality is not safe to breathe. For most of the day, the air quality stayed in the “very poor” category every time I turned on the air purifier.
The display also tells you the remaining life of the air filter, which should tell you when to change it.
The air purifier comes with a matte silver remote control that is magnetized and can be placed on top of the air purifier. So you don’t have to worry about misplacing it! The remote control can be used to control your air purifier remotely and it works fine. For everything else, I would recommend the app.
DYSON LINK APP
Controlling an air purifier from an app might sound too cumbersome, but in this case it’s just the opposite. Once you’ve set up the device, the app gives you useful insights and also allows you to control multiple Dyson devices from one control center. You can find detailed data about the air quality in your home. You can also set the air purifier on a schedule, turn on night mode, and even connect the air purifier to other smart devices in your home. As smart homes become a reality in urban centers, this functionality will make a big contribution.
With the ‘Hot + Cool’ function, you can turn the air purifier into a heater or a coolant. Although it warms the room well, I wouldn’t use it as an air conditioner replacement in the summer months. You can control the heating or cooling via the remote control or the app.
DOES THE AIR PURIFIER CLEAN THE AIR?
Judging whether an air purifier is working or not is not that easy. As the air quality outdoors and indoors deteriorates during the winter months, allergies increase, breathing difficulties increase, and watery eyes, itchy throats become the norm. The only way to test whether an air purifier is doing its job is to find out how effective it is at trapping particulate matter and other pollutants. All of these should help you breathe easily.
I put the Dyson Hot + Cool in my bedroom just before air pollution peaked in Northern India. My reasons were simple, my husband and I are both prone to seasonal allergies. On the other hand, my three year old son stayed indoors during the pandemic and had minimal exposure to poor air quality.
Here’s the good news, after the air purifier was placed in an enclosed space, the air quality changed from bad to good in about 40 minutes. If you don’t trust the data, here’s a personal anecdote. After spending 4 hours in a room with the air purifier, I got out only to cough and sneeze with watery eyes. When I entered another interior room with no air purifier, my eyes kept watering. When the air purifier is on, allergies can be better treated.
Essentially, when used correctly, air purifiers provide some relief from poor indoor air quality. Place the air purifier a certain height above the floor and keep windows and doors closed.
DOES THE PURIFIER HELP YOU BREATHE BETTER?
Yes, if you use it correctly. Place your air purifier at a height above the floor so that it not only removes dust from the floor but also actively purifies the air you breathe.
Another tip: close all doors and windows so that no outside air trickles into the room. While this is not always possible, the process of cleaning the air will be delayed if you keep windows open.
So does the Dyson Hot + Cool meet all the criteria for a good air purifier? I would say yes. When plugged in, I breathed easily, especially compared to the dangerous air quality outside. Although there are cheaper air purifiers on the market, Dyson claims to use a different test standard known as the POLAR test, which is aimed at cleaning the whole room. It is very difficult to verify this claim, but the air purifier provides the user with more information when it comes to air purification.
SHOULD YOU BUY THE DYSON HOT + COOL?
The Dyson Hot + Cool did well in most cases. We sneezed less, coughed less and were able to bring our room quality to a level we could all appreciate. But the moment we got out, all of these issues came back to haunt us, and in many cases that was the only argument against air purifiers. I also like that the Dyson Hot + Cool regulates the room temperature to a certain extent and doesn’t make too much noise.
At 47,515 rupees, the Dyson Hot + Cool is a luxury to say the least. There may be cheaper options out there that will suit your budget. But can you put a price tag on breathing clean air?
